Whisper (3 page)

Phillip

Zusia brought me some bread yesterday. I haven’t been able to steal much for a while, and I was getting pretty hungry. She slipped into my room and handed me the bread. I had eaten almost all of it before they caught us.

She should have left right after she gave me the bread, but she wanted to stay and talk. I told her that was just stupid, because we talk all of the time. She made such a big deal about it that I didn’t have the heart to argue with her. She reminds me a little of Dearra, so I knew it wouldn’t do me any good to fight with her. Anyway, after she makes this big deal about wanting to talk, she just sits there and watches me eat. I will never understand girls.

I have to tell you, Father, the Breken are a strange people. They know we steal, and they seem completely fine with it, unless they catch us…then it’s a whole different story.

The lady who is responsible for me is beautiful. Her skin is dark brown, and her hair is black, and hangs in a thousand braids down her back. She wears jewels and beads wound into her hair that are prettier than any crown worn by any princess. Her eyes are the same black as her kinsmen, but they are large, and she rims them with coal to make them stand out even more. She is tall, really, really tall. As beautiful as she is, she is ten times as mean. She seems to wait for me to do something wrong so she will have the chance to punish me. Her favorite way to punish me is to punish someone else in my place.

When I first came here, I made friends with a dog that roamed around the compound I stay in. One day, I snapped back at the mistress here. She was furious with me, and she turned to whip me, but the dog stood in front of me and growled at the lady, and she had him killed. When she saw my tears of grief over the loss of the dog, she seemed almost shocked by my reaction. Now she randomly chooses a slave to receive my beatings, I think as much to see my reaction as to punish me.

So, anyway, when the lady came in and found Zusia sitting next to me as I ate the stolen bread, her face almost split with her smile of joy. She beat Zuzu really bad. When she was done, she left her just lying there at my feet. I felt like I was going to be sick, and I was so ashamed that I started to retch. Zuzu just pushed herself into a sitting position and told me that if I wasted the bread after all she had gone through to get it, she would never speak to me again.

I got some water and a basin and one of the cleaner rags from the pallet where I sleep, and I washed her up as best I could. She never made a sound, but her tears slipped continuously down her face as I worked.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I kissed her cheek.

She smiled then, and it was like the sun had come out from behind a cloud. She started talking about what she would steal next and where she had gone wrong this time out. She was going on and on, and I couldn’t understand what had happened to change her mood so fast. I will never understand girls, I really won’t.

Oh, and, Father–the name of the Breken mistress who beat Zuzu is Mili. I think I will have to kill her
.

Each day aboard the ship blended with the day before. Though Dearra was not as ill as she had been during the first few days, she still didn’t trust her stomach not to rebel at the very first opportunity. She ate small, bland meals, and sipped water almost continuously in order to fight off dehydration. She stayed below deck as much as possible. The pitch and roll of the ship seemed so much worse when she stood on deck watching the sea as it fretted and foamed.

Carly spent more and more time on deck with the others, leaving Dearra to stew alone in her room, but today she perched herself on her bunk. She did not speak, but sat, arms crossed, staring at Dearra in irritation. She waited that way for quite some time, until the afternoon sun started to dip low on the horizon.

“Carly, what do you want from me?” Dearra finally said, breaking the silence. “I told you there’s nothing to say. Darius and I just had a falling out. Everything will be fine. I just need to give him time.”

Carly’s legs dangled over the side of her bed, her foot tapping in mid-air. Neither her expression nor her position changed, as she waited for a more thorough explanation.

Dearra sighed low and long as she weighed her options. Carly had obviously come to the end of her patience. In truth, Dearra was pretty impressed. If the shoe had been on the other foot, Dearra doubted if she could have waited even a few hours to hear the truth, let alone the many days Carly had endured. Though it would probably feel good to get it off her chest, she didn’t look forward to the scolding she knew she was going to get. Dearra took a steady breath, and began. “Okay, Carly,” she said. “You win. I’ll talk.”

Carly uncrossed her arms, braced her hands on the bunk, and leaned forward in expectation.

“The short story is that I should have listened to you and Brin. And Darius too, I suppose. I went to his room to show him something, and when I got there I…well…I teased him. I was pretty wanton. I just couldn’t imagine anything bad coming from something that felt that good.”

Dearra glanced up at her friend, trying to gauge her reaction, but Carly only sat stone-faced, waiting for Dearra to continue. “I don’t know how it happened, but one thing led to another, and we ended up on his bed, kissing. I really wasn’t worried until I realized I was pinned beneath him, and I couldn’t move. I told him to stop, but…”

Carly couldn’t contain herself any longer, so she sprang off her bed and went to Dearra, wrapping her arms around her in a tight embrace. “Oh, no! He…he…” The thought was so hideous, she couldn’t bring herself to even think of the word, let alone say it.

“No!” Dearra cried out, allaying her friend’s fears. “Brin stopped him in time, but it was close. If Brin hadn’t been there, I’m afraid it would have turned out very differently.”

Carly fumed. “I’m telling Daniel. That…that…
Breken
, should be strung up from the highest beam. How could he?”

Dearra’s mouth dropped open at Carly’s surprising response. “Carly, how can you say that?
I
am the one to blame.
I
went to his room.
I
teased and tempted him, and ignored him when he tried to caution me.
I
worked him up to a state where he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. He was beyond reason.”

“Hah! What a load of—

“Listen to me, Dearra.
He
is responsible for his own actions. Plus,
he
is the man! I don’t care if you parade around naked,
he
needs to control himself!”

Dearra shook her head. “Please, Carly, don’t tell Daniel. He will be so angry. This really
is
my fault, no matter what you may think. Darius and I just need to work this out.”

“Humph!”

“Please, Carly. Promise me you won’t tell.”

Carly lay down on her bunk and stared at the ceiling without responding.

An hour later, Carly rose from the bed. “Are you coming to dinner tonight, Dearra?”

“Not tonight. I think I’d better just eat in here again.”

“Whatever you think is best, dearest,” Carly said. She patted Dearra’s shoulder gently as she slipped from the room.

Carly had barely taken three steps when she was yanked, roughly, into another cabin. She recognized the hands that held her close in the dark room and she felt no panic.

“The two of you have been locked in there for hours! What did she say? Did you get the story or not?”

“I missed you too, Daniel,” Carly said, barely able to suppress her irritation.

Daniel took a moment to replay his actions, wrapped a bear-like arm around Carly, and nuzzled his bearded chin into her soft hair. “I’m sorry, Carly. We’ve all been on edge lately, and I guess I just got a little over anxious. Forgive me?” he said, planting fleeting kisses on her eyes and the tip of her nose.

“See? This is the problem right here. You…you…men, can’t control yourselves.”

“What?” Daniel took a step away from her and lit one of the small oil lamps secured to the wall. Now that he could better see his angry dove, he felt a moment’s hesitation. He had assumed that whatever had happened between Dearra and Darius had been a minor falling out, one that might be easily mended, but the look on Carly’s face said it was worse than they had anticipated. He listened as she relayed Dearra’s story to him. “Unbelievable! No control at all! I can’t believe it!” he said when she had finished.

“I quite agree. What are we going to do about it?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. I must say, I am surprised to see you so upset about this. I would have thought you would be more sympathetic.”

“Not a chance! I have never been so angry. There has to be some sort of punishment for this type of behavior.”

“I feel the same way. This is not something to be taken lightly. What do you think we should do to her?”

“First off…Wait, what do you mean
her
?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? Dearra was out of line. You can’t just play games like that with a man. We have our limits. While I agree that it’s a bad situation all the way around, if Darius had…well, if he had crossed that line, I would have had to kill him. Dearra would have had no one but herself to blame if it had come to that. After all, a man can only take so much. Fortunately, for all of us, everything turned out all right.”

“Tell me, Daniel, do you find it difficult to speak with both feet shoved so firmly into your mouth?”

“Carly, surely you must agree that—”

“Agree what? That men are beasts? Certainly. That you can’t control yourselves enough to be trusted, even around women you claim to love? Obviously. That you are a bunch of overgrown children who see, want, and take? Yes, Daniel. I certainly agree with that.”

“Carly, that’s not what I meant, and you know it.” His own patience was starting to wear a little thin at Carly’s twisting of his words. “You need to see reason. Dearra was warned. The fact that she almost got bit should be no surprise.”

Daniel had a way of ruffling Carly’s feathers like no one else could. She took a steadying breath before speaking. “Daniel, we keep many dogs on the island to guard livestock and families. Some of them are quite aggressive. Children are warned to stay away from them from the time they are old enough to understand words. On occasion, children venture too close, and out of curiosity, or sometimes just because they are feeling daring, they taunt the dog. And on even rarer occasion, that well trained animal will lash out, understandably, at its tormentor. The child had been warned repeatedly, and the dog was certainly justified in its attack. In such a situation, what do we do to the dog, Daniel?”

“That’s not the same thing, Carly. You can’t—”

“What do we do to the dog, Daniel?” Carly asked again.

“We put it down,” Daniel conceded.

“And why do we do that, Daniel? Was the child not warned? Was the dog not justified?” Carly asked coldly.

“Because we could never fully trust the animal again. We protect our own. But isn’t Darius one of us now? Do you not call him ‘brother’? Don’t let your love for Dearra blind you to her faults.”

Carly drew a slow, deep breath and then let it out again. “I suppose you are right. I
have
been blinded by my love. But I think you are equally blinded. You seem to think possessing certain…uh, I mean, you know, having…well, that
they
give you an excuse to be stupid,” Carly said, braving the briefest glance downwards as she faced Daniel. She felt her face flush.

“Uh,
they
? I’m not sure what you mean, Carly.
They
who?”

“You know what I mean, Daniel! Don’t be purposefully difficult. I’m just saying that being a man, which, admittedly, is a definite disability, doesn’t give you free rein to act like an animal.”

Sufficiently chastised, Daniel hung his head a bit. “Yes, Carly. We do tend to get a bit carried away.” He looked down at her, a small, devilish grin on his face, and he said, “But admit it, my sweet. You like knowing the dog can be a bit of a rogue from time to time.”

Carly took a step closer to Daniel. Her fingers traced a lazy line along his broad chest, and she smiled, coyly, up at him. “So true, Daniel. But remember, if the pup is too much of a scamp, we have ways of making sure his less than desirable traits are not passed on to future generations.” Carly traced her fingers lower, her hand pausing at his belt, and then she smiled sweetly and left the room. Daniel swallowed the hard lump that had formed in his throat and followed her out of the room, mindful to keep a respectful distance.

***

Being aboard the ship, in the middle of the ocean, had severely limited Brin’s diversions. People were an odd group, but he had become accustomed to the minds of his island home, and the daily ebb and flow of life around him. But with only a score of people on board, he had grown bored and a little lonely. Isolated in a box for a thousand years, he was used to only being able to listen to people’s thoughts, but since he had come to know Dearra and Darius, he had gotten used to communicating with others again, and he found he sorely missed the activity. True, the two of them had acted foolishly by putting themselves in a situation that could, potentially, ruin everything, but they were young, and didn’t really understand what was at stake.

Hearing things from Carly’s and Daniel’s points of view had gone a long way to cool Brin’s anger, as well as his fear. It really had been very, very close. If Brin hadn’t been there to stop them…but it did no good to dwell on it. Cyrus had been sure this was the only way, and Brin would have to trust in that. What other choice did he have?

Well, Fuzzy,
Brin said, using his pet name for Dearra
, aren’t you going to talk? I’m bored out of my mind, you know. You could think about someone else for a change,
Brin said somewhat stiffly.

Dearra sat up so quickly, she banged her head on the wooden shelf above her. “Ow!” she yelped.

Ah, Dearra, always the wordsmith. Your skill with a sword is surpassed only by your gift of oratory.

“Huh?”

Brin sighed, but felt relieved to be speaking to Dearra once more.

“Oh, Brin, I’m so glad you’re talking to me again. I’ve missed you. I really am sorry. I promise, I will listen to you from now on.”

Don’t go saying things you don’t mean, Dearra.
After a moment’s pause, he continued,
but maybe you could promise to at least be a little more…prudent.

Dearra hung her head in shame. “Yes, Brin,” she said.

Don’t feel too badly, Dearra. I knew another young couple a lot like the two of you.

“Really? Who?”

Cyrus and Dyanna.

“Cyrus? As in the Legend of Cyrus?
Your
Cyrus?”

Yes, Dearra, that Cyrus.

“But Dyanna is a Mirin Tor name.”

Yes, it is, isn’t it?

“Tell me, Brin! Tell me everything.”